Open Space Seattle:2100

Monday, October 31, 2005

Wild Turkey at Your Door? Introducing "The New Wild"

"Lush landscaping, trash bins filled with scraps, overflowing bird feeders, and house pets that make easy prey lure animals in increasing numbers and are transforming subdivisions into the new wild."

Recent news article in the Boston Globe details the increased interactions with wildlife in relation to sprawl-type developement.

Of interest in the reaction of people when these interacts turn confrontational. Also, interesting how the free market system come into play as well.

''These animals are coming onto suburban properties because they're extraordinarily attractive for feeding and breeding," said Stephen Meyer, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology political science professor who moonlights on the advisory committee of the state's Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program. ''The densities of squirrels, chipmunks, skunks, and raccoons is higher in suburbia than it is out in the wild woods, because we're offering them more attractive places to live."

Using new software to make hard decisions, King County Executive Ron Sims vows to make a difference.

Sims said the county is now using a visionary conservation tool unveiled last spring “the Greenprint for King County" to identify and target, down to the individual parcel level, the ecological lands, regional trails, farms, forests and flood protection areas that return the largest public benefits. Developed in partnership with Trust for Public Land, the Greenprint software package is "helping us become more strategic in our investments," Sims said. "It stretches our conservation money farther than seemed possible only a few short years ago."

Without a clear picture of the total bugdet, I do have one question. If the 2005 budget for parks is $21.31 million and the 2006 budget for parks is $17.62 million, where are the funds for this green space investment coming from when the actual operations are having to do the same (or more) with less?

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

From the Los Angeles Times, a story about Atlanta's efforts to create a 22 mile green corridor around their city using a former railroad grade. Consisting of parks, trails and transit connections, the city officials are borrowing Olmsted's old imagery for Boston's park system and creating an 'emerald necklace." If a metaphor isn't broken, don't fix it.

Monday, October 24, 2005

Weight and the Environment

Part of the focus for Open Space Seattle:2100 is to envision a healthier city for all of the populations within Seattle.And for that reason a recent article in the Seattle Times is fascinating in its diagnosis and hopeful for the future.Author Cara Solomon notes:

“More than half of KingCounty residents are considered either overweight or obese. A new survey by Public Health has found the highest obesity rates are in SouthKingCounty.”

University of Washington researchers and others are beginning to document how environmental factors are contributing to that health crisis, and their research is showing a correlation between obesity, income and the preponderance of fast food restaurants and cheap, unhealthy food in low income areas.Part of this can be explained, as the article suggests, with the simple recognition that doughnuts have more calories per dollar than fruits and vegetables, making them more attractive to low-income populations looking to put enough food on their tables.

But there is another side to the story as well.How is the environment designed to encourage exercise and healthy living? In low-income areas, both the lack of open space and the current uses of that open space contribute to a dehabilitating cycle. Dr. Odette Sueda sees the results of this lack of healthy environments everyday.

“Up to a half of Sueda's patients at the ColumbiaPublicHealthCenter in South Seattle are obese. Some of them can't afford bus fare to a community center, she said, let alone sports equipment. Outdoor exercise is sometimes the only option they have, Sueda said. But when she suggests it, parents sometimes resist. They talk about hypodermic needles in the grass, or parking lots with broken glass, or strangers roaming around, looking like a threat.”

The situation is replicated throughout the county/country in low-income communities, but here we are fortunately beginning to do something about it:

“Public Health-Seattle & KingCounty has spent the past year working with academics and architects, city planners and transportation experts as part of a new Overweight Prevention Initiative.

The county's anti-obesity initiative is attempting to deal with fears of crime by recommending longer hours for schools and community centers so residents can exercise indoors. It's also trying to expand a "Safe Routes to School" program, a partnership with the police department to get more kids walking.

A local pedestrian group called Feet First has been working on ‘walking audits’ with residents in Seattle and SouthKingCounty, documenting everything from faded crosswalks to missing sidewalks, then taking that information to city officials. Their work has already inspired Seattle's Department of Transportation to move some neighborhoods to the top of lists for improvements.

It's all part of a new focus on "walkability." Most people will simply not set aside a half hour, three times a week for exercise, the researchers say. So it's crucial that the streets themselves encourage activity, in their appearance and their design.

In the Delridge neighborhood, the old High Point project is a sprawling community of beaten-down barracks. The wide streets encourage speeding cars. The sidewalks are broken. Crime has been a serious concern. But block by block, the project is being transformed into mixed-income housing. New houses are painted in reds and greens and yellows, with windows and porches that look out on shared lawn where children play. Streets are narrow, sidewalks are wide, and landscaping serves as a buffer between them.

There are plenty of new amenities within walking distance, including a library and a public health center. And the city is trying to lure a large grocery store there soon.

It's all just good, healthy design, said Tom Phillips, the project director. It's not so much a step forward, he says, but a step back — to a time when communities were not built around the car.”

That about says it.“It’s all just good, healthy design.”What we are trying to achieve with Open Space Seattle:2100 is also just good, healthy design, but we are also looking at the ecological, economic and social aspects a century into the future to press for a comprehensive, revamped cityscape that harkens back to a time that cities embraced the pedestrian scale to create cities for people, rather than cars.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

First Lectures Announced

Open Space Seattle:2100, in partnership with the Department of Planning and Development's Urban Sustainability Speaker Series is pleased to announce the first two speakers in our lecture series. On November 14th, Marc Childs will be speaking downtown. The author of Squares, Mr. Childs is a renowned expert on urban open spaces. The second speaker will be Mike Houck. As the founding director of the Urban Greenspaces Institute and as the Urban Naturalist for the Audobon Society of Portland, Mr. Houck's life's work is focused on how natural systems might harmoniously coexist with human development.

We hope that you can join us at these events, which will take place in downtown Seattle at a venue TBD. These exciting lecturers will provide tremendous insight as we move toward an integrated open space network for the City of Seattle.

What is Open Space Seattle?

Welcome to Open Space Seattle:2100's new weblog, which we hope will act both as digital clearing house and online discussion board as this project moves forward.

Open Space Seattle:2100 was conceived of as a both a design and planning process and a coalition of vested citizens, agencies and organizations with the goal of creating a visionary plan for Seattle's open space strategy as the city begins to edge into the next century.

About

Open Space Seattle 2100: Designing Seattle's Green Network for the Next Century
University of Washington, the City of Seattle, the Urban Land Institute and other organizations are sponsoring Open Space Seattle: 2100, a design and planning process to formulate a 100-year vision for Seattle's comprehensive open space network. Join us for inspiring lectures, and start forming your team for a 2-day visioning charrette on February 3 and 4, 2006.
Email: open2100@u.washington.edu